


It's Not You

by mggislife2789



Category: Criminal Minds
Genre: Ambushes and Sneak Attacks, F/M, Gen, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-21
Updated: 2018-07-24
Packaged: 2019-04-25 15:52:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,916
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14381943
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mggislife2789/pseuds/mggislife2789
Summary: Disclaimer: I don't own any of these characters or their original stories. This is only for fun. It's where my brain goes after the credits roll. No copyright intended. Better safe than sorry. ;)





	1. Chapter 1

“Ready Simmons?”

Matt nodded toward his Captain, Michael Gecko. This team was like a well-oiled machine. Every piece was in place. Everyone knew what they needed to do and when. It was no easy task, but it was achievable. They’d done it before. His unit never failed.

They were so close to getting to OBL. Bin Laden had evaded their grasp for so long, but success in this mission meant gaining access to two of his right hand men. 

Captain Gecko went down the line, ensuring all of his men and women were ready to go before motioning with his middle and index fingers for the group to move forward as one. 

As they split into two groups, rounding each corner to flank their targets from two sides, no one could even hear the sound of a pin drop. They’d been trained extensively for this. Sound-resistant shoes, steady and firm footsteps, tight grip on their weapons. Nothing was going to give them away.

But the members of the compound knew they were there. In an instant, silence was overthrown by a wave of chaos. Shots were fired, shells falling to the floor in what felt like the thousands. Their own weaponry was used against them, automatics from a failed mission in the arms of the enemy. 

All around him, his fellow soldiers fell to the floor, dropping quickly as red stains specked their clothing. Quickly, he hid behind a column and began ducking periodically, shooting in spurts, assaulting the enemy with a wall of bullets. “Gecko!” 

His captain had been hit in the shoulder. Without thinking, he stormed across the room as the enemy was reloading and pulled Gecko behind a pillar by his healthy shoulder. “Simmons, what are you doing? We need them alive! One of them! Please! Go!”

His blood thudded through his veins as he came out from behind the pillar and shot one of the men they needed in the knee and then the shoulder. Gecko was blocked by the column, so Matt took the opportunity and took out two nearby terrorists with bullets to the chest before knocking the gun out of a third man’s hands with the back of his own gun. 

The clicks of the shells on the ground resounded throughout the room like a thunderstorm, overtaking nearly every thought running through his mind. Before he could do anything, the first target slit his own throat to keep from being taken in, but the second was on the run.

Bree Larson, one of the only women on his team ran toward one of the men, knocking the gun out of his hand before putting him in a chokehold. “I’ve got him!” She screamed. “Go! Go!”

Another moment’s hesitation and he turned around, running through the corridors after the second target. The man did everything he could to avoid Matt, but everything that had just happened, the minutes of insanity that had just played out before him, drove him forward. When he finally jumped the second target, Matt’s calves were on fire. 

As the assailant fought back, Matt unleashed everything onto him, his fists connecting with flesh and bone over and over again. “Simmons! Simmons, stop!”

Bloody knuckles slipped past his vision, whether they were his own or not, he didn’t know anymore. “Simmons, it’s Bree! Stop, we need him alive!”

In his hesitation, she was able to pull him back and check the target’s pulse. He was still alive. “You’ve got him. It’s over.”

It wasn’t over. Not by a long shot. It was only beginning. He had fallen friends. They’d lost one of their targets. His muscles were on fire and all he could think about was pummeling the man’s face into the ground until there was nothing left of it. This bastard had taken away good people. Why shouldn’t he meet the same fate?

“Simmons, we’ve got him!” She called again as he got up and walked away.

Matt rubbed the back of his head and buried his face in the wall as he screamed. “Yea, at what cost!?”

***

“It’s not you.” 

His arm was wrapped tightly around the man’s neck. Could not have been older than his early 20s. This…child had nearly killed his wife. He deserved to die.

“Baby, it’s not you!”

The second time he finally heard her, snapping back to reality to see her face, hair matted to her forehead on one side by blood. She was alive. She was calling to him. He didn’t need to do this. He didn’t need to do this.

Almost reluctantly, he let the man go, allowing Tara and Luke to handcuff him and take him in. Kristy collapsed into his arms. “It’s okay. You did the right thing. That’s not you.”

It had been once, but as he felt the smoothness of Kristy’s hair, tuned his hearing into the steadying of her breath, and touched his lips to her heated skin, he realized she was right. He was a husband to a beautiful, strong woman, and father to four amazingly generous and wonderful children. The old him was long gone, though it colored who he was now. And that person was so much more important.


	2. Take His Power Away

Unloading it all on Kristy never felt right. Matt talked to her occasionally about his time in the military, how it colored who he was now and his job with the BAU, but he never really got into detail with her. It seemed so wrong. She knew, of course. But thankfully she didn’t push it. 

“You have to talk to someone though,” she said. “Seriously talk. Please?”

It wasn’t an appealing thought, but he did what she wanted because she knew best. She always did.

It took quite a few sessions for him to open up about more than just regular bureau cases and his home life, but when he finally did he realized what he’d told so many victims so many times before. A good therapist was there to listen and guide - nothing more, nothing less. It was hard to strike the balance, but good ones mastered it. 

“In our last session, you told me what brought you here. Your wife asked you to come after a case that involved her,” Dr. Ziegler said. “Tell me about it.”

Matt took a deep breath and felt it catch in his chest. “I-I…”

“Take your time. There’s no rush. I just need you to open up to me.”

He placed his hand over his heart and took a few deep, cleansing breaths, steadying himself before he spoke. “My wife’s job was held hostage by a group of our unsubs - perpetrators,” he added for clarification. “Anyway one of them personally had my wife hostage when I arrived and I was able to get the upper hand on him, but when I did, I had this overwhelming urge…to kill him. All I wanted was to kill him.”

“All rational thought goes out the window when our loved ones are at risk,” she reassured him. “The point is you didn’t do it. Why didn’t you kill him?”

The left corner of his lip flicked upward. “Kristy. I had my arm around the guy’s neck and I saw her. The blood was matted to her forehead but she was alive and she was pleading with me…” His heart raced just thinking about it. It could’ve so easily gone the other way. He could’ve so easily tuned her out and killed the man that hurt her. But he didn’t. “She didn’t say anything, but she was begging me not to. Because I’ve been that man before.”

“What man?” 

Kristy and the kids changed him into the man he’d always wanted to be. Even talking about the man he was before felt like letting that man in and if he let him in he could take over and if he could take over- “Hey.” Dr. Ziegler interrupted his racing thoughts. “I know those darting eyes, the flop sweat on the brow. Whatever man you were you aren’t anymore, but not talking about it is the exact way to let him in. If you talk about him that takes his power away. Talking will heal you. Just breathe through it.”

Matt felt himself zone off into the distance, doing anything he can to distance himself from the ‘boogeyman.’ “When I was in Delta Force, I was involved in some of the most high-profile cases. We went after OBL’s right hand men.”

The doctor raised on eyebrow. “OBL?”

“Osama Bin Laden.”

“Oh wow, that’s…intense.”

“To say the least.”

Letting this all come to the surface felt foreign, but also right - a little nauseating, but necessary too. He had to take a minute to compose himself again. “I was part of a mission to go after two of his right hand men. I went in with my team and we thought we had the jump on them, but our plan didn’t play out the way we thought it would. Bullets went flying. Terrorists went down. But…so did some of my team.”

“So you’ve experienced loss before.”

“Too much.”

“Keep going,” she whispered, learning back into her chair. 

“Anyway, my captain got shot, I pulled him out of the line of fire and then another member of the team came to watch him while I went after the man we needed.” His eyes started to well up and he wiped them away with the backs of his hands. “I caught up to him and I tackled him to the ground and I just saw all of my fallen friends and I wanted him to pay, so I hit him over and over and over again. The only reason I stopped was because one of my fellow soldiers called out to me multiple times. She even tried to pull me off once or twice. But all I wanted was to hit him until he died, because I wanted him to pay for what he’d done to my friends - to good people.”

“But you didn’t then either, right?” The man lived.

“Yes, but there were times before then that I failed. I did exactly what I wanted and took life for the sake of revenge.” His lip quivered. He was so ashamed. He should’ve been stronger. “And I was so close to doing it again when that man had Kristy hostage. I wanted it…”

She let him sit with his thoughts for a moment before speaking. “What matters is that you’re not the man anymore. What matters is that even before your wife was in the picture you were fighting to become the man you are now.”

His head snapped up to meet her gaze. “How so?”

“The mission for Bin Laden’s right hand? You didn’t kill him. Because someone pulled you away - some you cared about - and you let them in because you wanted to be someone better.”

He’d never really thought about it like that before.

“There’s a big difference between thoughts and actions.”

“I guess that makes sense,” he replied, feeling his muscles relax a bit. “I don’t know whether I truly believe it yet, but I can see where you’re coming from.”

He’d only been going to her for a couple of months. “I don’t expect you to truly believe it in your bones overnight, but like I said, we’ll continue talking and that man’s power will be taken away. You just have to be open. Trust. You’ve done it before. You can do it again.”


End file.
